You are my favorite cousin, and as this is the worst day of my life, you are the only person I can talk to about it. I've been missing you, ever since the vacation at Gran and Grandad's over the ... [+]
My very dear Claire, I already know so much about you, and yet I have never actually seen you. For six months now, I have been passing you, sensing you, hearing you, closing my eyes when I smell your scent, as rich and powerful as a childhood memory, leaving its warm fragrance of caramel gingerbread to perfume the staircase. Nowadays thousands of people live right next to each other without ever seeing each other. The fact that chance has so happily cast us on the same road, in the same building, on the same landing, I take that as a gift of life. I just wanted to tell you in this letter how